Montana Noir

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.

Brand-new stories by: David Abrams, Caroline Patterson, Eric Heidle, Thomas McGuane, Janet Skeslien Charles, Sidner Larson, Yvonne Seng, James Grady, Jamie Ford, Carrie La Seur, Walter Kirn, Gwen Florio, Debra Magpie Earling, and Keir Graff.

Montana is a state that many Americans know very little about, but its criminal dimensions can sometimes run as deep as anywhere else in the country. Whether the setting is urban (or what passes for urban in Montanta) or rural, or somewhere in between, the stories in this volume bring the state to life...or death.

From the introduction by James Grady and Keir Graff:

This anthology is a road trip through the dreams and disasters of the true Montana, stories written by authors with Montana in their blood, tales that circle you around the state through its cities and small towns...No doubt the state's beauty will still make the very idea of Montana Noir seem incongruous to some. Noir is black-and-white. Streets and alleys. Flashing neon lighting a rain-streaked window. But while noir was definitely an urban invention, it knows no boundaries. Noir is struggle. It's doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. It's being trapped. It's hubris. It's being defeated yet going on. Sometimes it's being defeated and not going on.

That's life everywhere.
This is our Montana.

Keir Graff was born and raised in Missoula, Montana. He is the author of four novels for adults (most recently The Price of Liberty), and two novels for middle-graders. Graff now lives in Chicago, where he is the executive editor of Booklist.